On January 28, 1918, the 28th President of the United States Woodrow Wilson went before a joint session of congress and delivered a speech which has now become known as the "Fourteen Points". This speech was preceded by "Peace Without Victory", delivered to the Senate on January 22, 1917 which laid the ground work for the "Fourteen Points". The idealism expressed in them was widely acclaimed and gave Wilson a position of moral leadership among the Allied leaders. A political novice who had held only one public office before becoming president, Wilson possessed considerable political skill. He was a brilliant and effective public speaker, but he found it difficult to co-work well with other government officials, from whom he tolerated no disagreement. Woodrow Wilson was remembered by his friends and close associates as a warm, fun-loving man who energetically pursued his ideals. But the harsh years in the presidential office, a tragic illness, and the public's dissatisfaction with him following World War I transformed Wilson's image to that of a humorless crusader for a feeble League of Nations.
It was Wilson's clear intent to form a lasting peace, for this was the war to end all wars, "What we demand in this war, therefore, is nothing peculiar to ourselves. It is that the world be made fit and safe to live in; and particularly that it be made safe for every peace-loving nation which, like our own, wishes to live its own life, determine its own institutions, be assured of justice and fair dealing by the other peoples of the world as against force and selfish aggression. All the peoples of the world are in effect partners in this interest, and for our own part we see very clearly that unless justice be done to others it will not be done to us." Wilson also wanted to stop back room diplomacy that ran wild during the 19th century, "It will be our wish and purpose that the processes of peace, when they are begun, shall be absolutely open and that they shall involve and permit henceforth no secret understandings of any kind.